


Episode 2.5: Hawkeye

by Starbooks13



Series: Spiders Have To Stick Together [31]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: (I hope), Banter, Blending Universes, Canon Compliant, Character Development, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint's A Little Jealous, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Natasha Sets Him Straight, Platonic Life Partners, Protective!Natasha, Season 3 Is Going To Screw Everything Up, Sparring, Spiders Have To Stick Together, Trust, Women Being Awesome, but no shipping intended, can be read as clint/natasha if you want to, sort of not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2296229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbooks13/pseuds/Starbooks13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Clint is a little insecure and Natasha clarifies just who the most important man in her life is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Episode 2.5: Hawkeye

                The morning after his adventure with Spider-Man, Clint went looking for his partner.  To his surprise, he found her in the gym sparring with Phil Coulson.  After watching her pin their former handler and help him to his feet, Clint called out, “Hey, Phil! Long time no see.  What brings you here?”

                Phil grabbed a towel off the ropes around the sparring ring and wiped the sweat from his face.  “When the Black Widow invites you to spar with her and you are in desperate need of practice, you always say yes.”

                Clint laughed.  “Getting soft in that cushy office job, huh?”

                “I can still destroy you with a word, Barton.”

                “Yes, sir.”

                Phil turned to Natasha.  “I think I’m done for today anyway.  I’ll leave you two to talk about last night.”  Clint rolled his eyes.  Of course Phil knew about last night.  “By the way, Clint, nice work with the Beetle.”

                “From you, Phil, that means a lot.”  As sarcastic as he was sure that sounded, he meant every word.  Phil Coulson was still the only SHIELD agent on record to have taken down the Beetle single-handedly.  As much as he hated to admit it, Clint wouldn’t have stood a chance against the mercenary if it hadn’t been for Spider-Man.

                After Phil climbed out of the ring and headed out the gym door, Natasha climbed out of the ring herself and hopped down to the floor in front of Clint. “I didn’t expect you’d come find me.”

                He snorted.  “Seriously?  I’m your partner, Tasha.  I know you.  I know you’d want to hear it from me, even though I’m sure you and Phil have talked it over already.”

                “So?” Only someone who knew her as well as he did could hear the slight anticipation in her voice.

                “He’s a pain.  Cocky, arrogant, a show-off-”

                She raised an eyebrow.  “Sound familiar?”

                He rolled his eyes.  “Geez, Nat, let me finish, will you?”

                Her lips twitched slightly upward as she leaned back against the side of the ring. “Please, continue.”

                “He’s a cocky, arrogant, show-off pain in the neck, but overall, not bad.” He paused, considering his next words.  “I think I finally get what you see in him.”

                Natasha snorted.  “About time.”

                “Says the woman who still hasn’t met him.”  That made her tense a little.  “Seriously, Tasha, you care about this kid and his future as a hero.  Why haven’t you just gone ahead and introduced yourself?”

                She turned away to grab her water bottle and took a long drink.  “I’m not mentor material, Clint,” she said, keeping her back to him.

                “Oh, and you think I am?”

                She glanced over her shoulder with a smirk. “Not particularly.”

                Clint chuckled, even though he knew she was serious.  He didn’t mind.  He didn’t consider himself mentor material, either.  “So you’re just, what, protecting him from a distance?”

                She turned back around.  “Yes.  You of all people should know that sometimes the biggest threats are the ones we don’t see coming from an immediate vantage point.”

                He did.  That was his job as a sniper, after all—looking at the big picture for long distance threats, then either warning his partner about the danger or destroying it himself.  “So you’re doing for him what I do for you on missions.”

                She shrugged.  “Something like that.”  She looked at him closely.  “Do you have a problem with that?”

                He sighed.  “It’s not that I don’t think the kid’s worth protecting.  It’s like you said, he has a good heart and a lot of potential.  I just…” he searched for the right words.  “I don’t want to lose you because of him.  What happened that first time, with Doom...I mean, you do reckless things sometimes, but that scared the crap outta me.  You know how I feel about Loki.”

                Natasha’s eyes narrowed.  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

                “It was right after Spider-Man joined SHIELD.  I knew you were already having it rough with Fury over the kid.  I was afraid if I said something, you’d fight over it with me too.”

                “Clint,” she said sharply.  “You should never, ever feel afraid to tell me anything.” Her expression softened.  “I may want to help Peter, but you mean more to me than he ever will.” 

                Clint glanced down.  “I’m sorry, you’ve just been willing to risk so much for him lately-”

                “I would do all of it and more for you.”   He looked back at her just in time to catch an odd expression on her face.  “Clint Barton, are you…jealous of Spider-Man?”

                He felt his face heat up.  “Me? Jealous? Of that brat? No, of course not, that’s ridiculous! Where did you get an idea like that?”

                “Barton.”

                He squirmed at her use of his last name.  He tried to hold out, but greater men than him had broken under Natasha Romanoff’s icy glare.  “Okay, maybe a little,” he confessed.  “I just didn’t see what was so great about him.  But like I said, I do now!” he quickly added.  “At least I’m starting to.”

                She shook her head.  “God, you’re worse than a teenage girl sometimes.”

                “I’m sorry, Nat, I just…I care about you a lot.”

                “I know.”  She put a hand on his shoulder.  “Don’t worry, Barton.  You’re not losing me anytime soon.” 

                He reached up and put his hand over hers.  “That’s good to hear.”

                She sighed and pulled her hand away.  “Though I have been obsessing a little over Parker since he joined SHIELD.  Phil’s right, I need to trust Peter and those around him more than I have been.  Even if I find it hard to do that.”  She looked at him almost sheepishly.  “And I guess your concern’s valid since I’ve been going to Phil first instead of you.”

                “Nah, Phil’s the right person to talk to if you’re worried about the kid.  He can give you a lot better insight. But you know you can always come to me if you need to talk.”

                “I wouldn’t expect that to have changed.” She paused, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.  “Thank you. For understanding.  And for keeping him safe last night.”

                He grinned.  “Just doing my job, ma’am.  Though don’t expect me to do it again anytime soon.  Kid broke my bow string.”

                Natasha winced.  “Yikes.  Guess I owe you for that.”

                “Let me test drive those new throwing knives you got in Calcutta, and I’ll call us even.”

                She grinned back. “Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> I realized that with all the time this series' version of Natasha has been devoting to protecting Peter, Clint might get a little bit jealous of all the attention his partner's giving to some punk kid, especially after having actually met Peter. I also realized that just by nature of the series, I'm painting it as though Peter is the most important person in Natasha's life. He's important to her, yes, but I think Clint, Phil, even the other Avengers, are more important to Natasha then Peter is, because while she does want to keep him safe, they're her friends. In a pinch, I think she'd choose Clint over Peter any day, and I hope I conveyed here just how much they mean to each other, even though I also tried to portray them as having a platonic relationship because I feel it fits better for this series.


End file.
